“Now is the winter of our discontent.” The line from Shakespeare’s Richard III is supposed to mean that the worst is in the past. We are six Bundesliga matches in (2-2-2) and sitting somewhat uncomfortably in 9th place with 8 points. We have a match with Borussia Dortmund, comfortably in 2nd place on 15 points, looming on Sunday. Robben out. Ribery out. Contento out. But hey, at least Breno’s back to training!

It has, so far, been a frustrating season for Bayern Munich. Die Roten have been (strangely) quietly full-of-suck, managing only 5 points in 4 Bundesliga matches and stuck, ignominiously, in a tie for 8th place. It seems like no one, not even UEFA, wants us to have any fun.

My original plan was to write a preview of all teams in Champions League Group E, but I came to a sad realization: I know next to nothing about CFR Cluj and rather little about FC Basel. I decided, in truth, that I couldn’t even fake my way through it. So, this will be, instead, a preview of Bayern’s Wednesday night match against AS Roma. In all fairness, these are the two teams that should be advancing to the knockout stage. But, here’s what I do know about the teams placed in Pots 3 and 4.

I don’t know about you all, but I often find myself in an internal battle of club versus country. Two recent examples of this being Neuer’s howler in injury time that cost Schalke 04 Bundesliga points on Friday, and Per Mertesacker’s broken orbital bone suffered during the EURO qualifier against Azerbaijan.